Hockey and lacrosse are contact sports where sticks are integral elements of the game, and it is important that the hands of the players be protected. The hands must be protected against not only the powerful external blows they often receive but also against hyper-extending and over-extending the digits, particularly the thumb. It is similarly necessary to protect the hands in motorcycle racing. Conventional protective gloves are constructed with individual finger stalls and impact resistant padding covering the dorsal surface of each finger and the back and sides of the hand. The protective padding typically extends below the hand to the wrist area, and can even extend several inches up the player's forearm. Protective gloves also typically use stiff, impact resistant sheet form elements as protective components in such glove constructions.
Protective padding on athletic gloves often restricts flexibility. Accordingly, it is also conventional to fabricate such gloves with segmented padding in order to somewhat improve hand and finger flexibility. The stalls for the second through fifth digits are often shaped in a precurled position that emulates the gripping position the player will be using. Gripping the stick or handlebars is thereby made more efficient because the wearer need not overcome the stiffness of the glove simply to achieve and maintain the natural gripping position.
The human thumb, however, is in opposition to the fingers, and its skeletal structure is significantly different from that of the fingers. The thumb, particularly the metacarpalphalangeal joint (and also, to a lesser degree, the carpalmetacarpal joint), is highly susceptible to injury from hyper-extension and over-extension, which result when the thumb is forced outside of its normal range of movement. This bending can strain or tear the ligaments of the thumb joints, and particularly the ulnar collateral ligament, which is connected around the metacarpalphalangeal joint. These injuries can be very serious, even career ending in some circumstances. Surgery is required in severe cases. Generally, the injured hand never completely recovers the joint mobility it enjoyed prior to the injury.
Nevertheless, opposable thumb movement is critical to achieving a functional grip on a hockey stick, lacrosse stick, or motorcycle handlebar, and the thumb-protecting structures employed in the prior art do not provide an acceptable combination of protection and flexibility in the thumb portion of the glove. Typical of such thumb protectors are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,515 to Murray, issued Dec. 14, 1971, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,572 to Jansson et al., issued Feb. 6, 1979, which are hereby incorporated by reference as if they were fully set forth herein. The Murray patent discloses a thumb guard comprising an elongate, stiff, unbreakable center or core insert sandwiched between layers of a shock absorbing material. The length of this thumb guard is shown to be sufficient to cover both phalanges as well as at least a portion of the metacarpal of the thumb. Murray apparently recognizes the inflexible nature of this thumb guard and in response thereto, does not attach it directly to the thumb encasing portion of the glove. Instead, the thumb encasing portion of the glove is rendered moveable independently of the thumb guard by attachment thereto with a short strap. This means, however, that as the player's thumb is curled around the stick shaft in a gripping position, at least the distal portion of the thumb moves away from the overlying thumb guard and the protection afforded thereby.
In the Jansson patent, a thumb protective element is disclosed which is similar in construction to the stiff elongate sandwich structure employed in Murray. In Jansson, however, this unarticulated stiff protective element extends proximally and uninterruptedly from the tip of the thumb stall into the wrist protective cuff thereof. In addition, the thumb protective element is stitched directly to the thumb stall of the glove. Thus, the thumb portion of the Jansson glove appears to provide even less flexibility than that of the Murray glove. Today, many professional hockey teams require the players to use a protective member like that disclosed in Jansson because of the superior protection it affords. However, this protective element severely impairs flexibility. Accordingly, players often cut or break the required thumb protective element at the wrist area, so that they are effectively using a shorter protective element such as that disclosed in Murray.
Multiple piece thumb protectors have been used in the prior art with the goal of achieving improved flexibility without sacrificing protection. U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,703 to Brine et al., issued Aug. 24, 1993, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if it were fully set forth herein, discloses a thumb protective construction employing a distal protective element overlying the phalanges of the thumb and a proximal protective element overlying the metacarpal bone of the thumb. The two protective elements are secured in proximal relation with an intermediate arcuately shaped element disposed thereover. However, it is believed that to the extent this construction provides any real thumb flexibility, it can do so only by failing to provide adequate protection against hyper-extension and over-extension of the thumb. Conversely, it is similarly believed that for the Brine thumb protector to meaningful protect against hyper-tension and over-extension, it can only do so at the sacrifice of thumb flexibility.
A further drawback of the prior art thumb protectors is that they tend to be designed in a straight configuration. As explained, the finger stalls of modern gloves come in a precurled disposition to accommodate the wearer's natural gripping position. Nevertheless, similar accommodations have not heretofore been made for the thumb even though it too is bent when gripping athletic sticks or handlebars.